If you read my blog you probably already know through some other channel that my sister went to be with the Lord on February 17. The funeral home website posted her obituary and a video slideshow, and the following are the notes for the talk I gave at the funeral service.

My sister was a gifted crafter. As the many quilts displayed in the sanctuary demonstrate, she had a keen eye and deft touch to put her ideas into incarnated form. Before she was squaring quilts, she was knitting, inventing her own patterns for socks and sweaters and hats and turtles and costumes for pirate turtles such as Captain Knack Sparrow.

For as many projects as she finished, word is, even by her own testimony, that there were dozens more she’d begun. Miles of of yarn and square yards of fabric in her stockpile were waiting for their turn on her needles or craft table respectively. It seems that socks were her particular weakness. She often knit one, that couldn’t truly be called the first, because she never cast on the second.

In some ways it feels as if her life was only half finished, or as if she had started some elaborate quilt that is now sewn short and not so neatly. Switching analogies, not many authors would write a story like this. She gave her life to Christ less than a year ago, so how many more things we might have anticipated for her? How many things did she anticipate doing differently? I believe that God is sovereign, that He writes the story how He wants and that each individual sentence ends for our good and His glory. I’m not questioning His timing. I’m saying it’s different than we would do.

In some ways it’s surprising that she made it this long. That’s partly because one doctor forecast in the middle of August that she might have only three weeks to live, and she lived more than six months longer than that. It’s also surprising she made it this far because, among other things, I tried to teach her how to ride a bike by pushing her down a hill when she was I only four years old, or maybe she was only three. Apparently I forgot to tell her to go toward the side without the car at the bottom; she did ride down the hill…directly into the car.

We shared a variety of memories, including the times when dad and mom required us to put our noses on the windows in the back of the car when we were messing with each other’s stuff, or sneaking over past the halfway mark on the backseat. We often threatened each other in the heat of some sibling argument that when we grew up we wouldn’t give the other one a kidney.

One of our competitions also involved seeing how long we could get mom to respond to us saying goodnight. In one of the houses we lived in, mom would tuck us in and then head down the stairs. Brooke and I would try to see how many ways we could say “Goodnight” and “I love you” until Mom had had enough at the bottom and shut the door. One of our favorite techniques was, “I love you *last number of times*” because you can’t go any higher than that, right? Then our higher math developed and we loved her last number of times, times infinity, plus one.

As I said earlier she repented and put her faith in Jesus Christ less than a year ago, here at West Hill Baptist Church on Easter Sunday, 2016. She immediately found a church near her apartment in Cincinnati, Truth Community Church, and started worshipping there. I saw her a few weeks after she professed faith and she was so excited to be learning about Ephesians verse-by-verse. Her only disappointment was that Pastor Green was already in chapter 6. She asked me, “Do you think there is any way I could go back and study the first five chapters, too?”

She was already feeding on and being satisfied by the God’s Word. The Bible is like food. It is bread and wine that give joy and peace.

Eleven years ago when I talked at my dad’s funeral service I said he possessed an uncommon diligence and that I wished he had known more Christian joy. My sister had an uncommon ability to make others feel included. She was funny and smart, quick as anyone with witty wisecracks. And I still wish my sister had known more Christian peace. For a variety of reasons, and for many years, she didn’t have the security and stability that only comes from the blessing of the heavenly Father. She had some great friends, she accomplished some stunning projects, but until she submitted to Christ she did not start to have the peace or the firmness of being planted like a tree by living water as Psalm 1 describes.

She knew the gospel. She grew up going to church with the family, she graduated from a Christian college, she taught in a Christian school for a few years. Sadly not everyone in those places treated her well, and she didn’t see the gospel well-adorned by professing believers. Some of the “Christians” were real jerks (“jerk” being the only word dad taught us how to spell in sign-language). Yet if she could tell us something from heaven, I suspect one thing would be: don’t let any of that keep you from the peace of God the Father that comes through Jesus His Son.

The Lord has decided that it is best for her to get her heavenly dose of His peace sooner than later. Though she only began to know His peace on earth for a short time, He has blessed her in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3), and she’s there now. She has full redemption through Christ’s blood, the forgiveness of trespasses according to the riches of grace (Ephesians 1:7). She experiences the rich mercy of God, He has raised her in heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 2:6). She knows the breadth and length and height and depth and the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:18-19). And at this point she knows way more about Ephesians than I do!

The gospel of peace (Ephesians 6:15) has brought her to her eternal peace, and all of us who believe will get there too.

So I love her last number of times, and I’m glad to get the final word, because I know that she has great peace with our Father.